Encyclopedia of Espionage, Intelligence, and Security

Chechen-Russian Conflict

█ JUDSON KNIGHT

During the 1990s, westerners became aware of a seemingly incongruous
conflict between the Russian Federation and Chechnya, a small breakaway
republic along its southern border. In fact, Chechens had resisted Russian
rule, sometimes actively and sometimes passively, for over two centuries.
To both sides, as well as to outside observers, the success of the Russian
response to the secessionist movement served as a litmus test for the
Kremlin's ability to maintain sovereignty over Russian territories
in the post-Cold War era.

Background (1791–1991)

Located along the northern flank of the Greater Caucasus mountain range,
Chechnya is about the size of Massachusetts, with a much smaller
population: about 1,165,000 people at the end of the twentieth century. To
the east and southeast is Dagestan, which, like Chechnya, was an outlying
minority region of the Russian Empire in the eighteenth and nineteenth
centuries, and an "autonomous republic" in the Soviet Union
and later the Russian Federation. For decades, Moscow administered
Chechnya as a unit with Ingushetia, which lies to the west. By contrast,
Georgia, to the south, has enjoyed full independence since the breakup of
the Soviet Union at the end of 1991.

Ethnic Chechens, as well as the Ingush minority in Chechnya, are Muslim,
and their shared religion has long been a rallying point for resistance
against Russian rule. In 1791, their Sheikh Mansur, a national hero and
symbol of Chechen resistance, lost a key battle to the Russians, yet
Russia did not truly secure control for several more decades. In the
1830s, Muslim leader Shamil prosecuted a campaign of guerrilla warfare
against the Russians, and when the latter were diverted by the Crimean War
in the 1850s, it seemed that the Chechens might successfully break away.
As soon as Russia turned its attention to the Chechen problem, however, it
crushed Shamil's revolt.

In 1917, the new Bolshevik government created a joint Chechen and Ingush
entity that would eventually be given the name "Chechen Ingush
Autonomous Region." During World War II, Soviet dictator Josef
Stalin used alleged Nazi sympathies on the part of the local populace as a
pretext for a mass deportation in 1944. Thousands of Chechens and Ingush
died in transit, or as a result of deliberate Soviet actions. Only in 1957
were they allowed to return to their homeland, where they remained an
obscure fringe element of the Soviet empire until that empire began to
crumble.

The first Chechen war (1991–96).
In August 1991, Chechen politician and former Soviet air force general
Dzhozkhar Dudayev led a coup against the local Moscow-appointed
government. Elected president on October 27, he declared independence on
November 1. In 1992, Checheno-Ingushetia split in two, with Dudayev still
leading the Chechen portion, and in 1993, he dissolved Chechnya's
parliament.

Over the course of 1994, Moscow attempted to foment a coup by backing
anti-Dudayev groups within Chechnya. When these efforts failed to yield
fruit, President Boris Yeltsin in November ordered the Chechens to
peaceably accept Russian sovereignty or face armed intervention. When the
Chechens did not surrender the reins of
government, Russia invaded with a force of 40,000 men on December 11,
1994.

In a situation that recalled the Soviet debacle in Afghanistan that had
begun almost exactly 15 years earlier, the Russians found themselves
thwarted in their hopes for easy victory. Pushed back from the capital
city of Grozny, they only managed to take it in March 1995, at a heavy
military and civilian cost. In April, Yeltsin ordered a unilateral
ceasefire, but sporadic fighting continued throughout the spring. Only in
June did peace talks begin.

January 1996 saw a Russian incursion in neighboring Dagestan, where rebels
had seized control of a hospital. Meanwhile, fighting went on as before in
Chechnya, and though Yeltsin on March 31, called for a limited withdrawal,
this did nothing to abate hostilities. Anti-Russian sentiment in Chechnya
flared when a rocket attack killed Dudayev on April 21, and on August 6,
rebel forces gained control of Grozny. Then, on August 31, newly instated
Russian security chief Alexander Lebed signed a pact with the rebels,
declaring the war concluded and putting off the question of Chechen
independence.

The second Chechen war (1997–99).
In 1997, Aslan Maskhadov, leader of one of the anti-Dudayev forces, was
elected president of Chechnya. That May, Maskhadov and Yeltsin signed a
peace treaty, but still failed to address the question of
Chechnya's future status. Resentment of Russian rule continued, and
with it sporadic armed resistance.

August 1999 saw more incursions into Dagestan, this time on the part of
Chechen rebels, who seized control of several towns. Meanwhile, Russia,
which had sponsored terrorist movements worldwide during the Soviet years,
for now became the target of terrorism as Chechen separatists set off a
wave of bombings in Russia proper. Chechen separatists destroyed four
apartment buildings in Moscow, and by the end of September, more than 300
people had died in terrorist incidents across the country.

Although the Kremlin had opposed the U.S. and allied European bombing of
Yugoslavia under the aegis of NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization)
earlier in 1999, in September, the Russians in Grozny emulated the NATO
strategy of strategic air offensives. At month's end, however, it
became clear that bombing alone would not be enough, and as midnight
approached on September 30, several thousand Russian soldiers, with the
support of some 1,000 armored vehicles, advanced into northern Chechnya.

At the end of October came an announcement from Russia's defense
minister, Igor Sergeyev, that Russian troops would remain in Chechnya
"for a long time and seriously." This marked a reversal of
Moscow's claim, made at the beginning of the offensive, that it was
acting only to stop Chechen incursions into Dagestan. Meanwhile, the
Russians had set up a government under the leadership of a pro-Russian
parliament whose members had been living in Moscow since 1996.

Chechnya since 1999.
By the end of the 1990s, it was estimated that some 100,000 people had
died, and more than 400,000 were rendered homeless, by the wars in
Chechnya. In 2002, actions by Chechen troops and terrorists against the
Russians continued, with suicide bombings, the downing of a Russian
helicopter, and—most dramatically—the storming of a Moscow
concert hall in late October. The Russian government responded to the
terrorists by gassing the building, rescuing most of the hostages, while
killing some hostages along with the perpetrators.

On November 3, 2002, Sergei Ivanov, who had replaced Sergeyev as defense
minister, announced that Russia would intensify military operations in
Chechnya. Military activity continued, but in early 2003, Russia signaled
a new strategy. It declared six months' amnesty for all who had
fought on either side in the Chechen conflict since 1993, offering all
combatants—including convicts and those under investigation, though
not persons accused of major crimes such as murder—immunity from
prosecution or prison time.

The Russian and Chechen governments held a referendum in April, 2003, that
saw large voter acceptance for a new Russian-backed constitution. Critics
in Chechnya, however, charged that the referendum and constitution were
simply a means toward providing an illusion of self-rule. Internationally,
leaders of human rights groups, as well as some Western officials,
described the election as an attempt by the Kremlin to avoid negotiation
with guerrilla forces.

█ FURTHER READING:

BOOKS:

Gall, Carlotta, and Thomas De Waal.
Chechnya: Calamity in the Caucasus.
New York: New York University Press, 1998.

Knezys, Stasys, and Romanas Sedlickas.
The War in Chechnya.
College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1999.